TIFTON, Ga. — Tift County finished up the last of its organized team activities last week on the gridiron and are getting closer to being ready for the season.

Head coach Ashley Anders said they were back to “business as usual” at practice. The official start to conditioning practice begins Monday, according to the Georgia High School Association. Morning sessions wrapped up for Tift during the week. Now, they are on to the afternoon heat. Practice in pads will begin Aug. 1.

Tift ended their organized team activities at Cook High Wednesday in a two-day meet. The Cook OTA was one of the area’s largest, involving nine teams. Outside of themselves and their hosts, Anders said that teams such as Bacon County, Berrien and Clinch County were involved. The Blue Devils sent two squads.

He picked this OTA as he “wanted to maximize our reps.” Anders thinks they got triple the amount of reps that they would have in a normal practice. The rules of this OTA were about 15 minutes per session, he said. Teams would rotate on offense. “You learn to play fast,” he said.

While they were not worried about anyone else, the two days on the Cook campus allowed the Devils to learn a bit more about themselves. Defensively, Anders said that he moved some players around.

“I know we got better,” he said.

Of all the teams involved, they will see just two during the season, one in a game that counts towards their overall record. Tift will host Turner County in a scrimmage Aug. 12 and will play their first home game of the year Aug. 26 against Cook. This will be their third straight season playing the Hornets; Cook has come to Tifton each year. A team from Tifton has not met a Turner County team during the regular season since the Devils traveled to Ashburn High in 1928.

Anders had to miss the press conference scheduled in Statesboro Saturday for the Erk Russell Classic. The Blue Devils will be playing South Effingham in the first of the four-game series Aug. 19. All eight schools scheduled for the Classic were invited to bring a player and speak about their teams. Tift had been previously scheduled for team picture day.

Anders is expected to give a preview of the squad this Saturday at the Tift Regional Events Center as part of the Kick-Off to Men’s Health. Seven schools are slated to participate. Besides the Devils, Tiftarea Academy, Cook, Fitzgerald, Irwin County, Turner County and Worth County have been advertised.